🌹 Work

🧠 Learning

I am going back to coding lately, I am diving into Python tooling, especially package management, linting, formating and so on and so forth. The main focus this month is trying astral set of Python tools.

  • Rye: Futiristic package manager for Python by Astral.
  • UV: New Package manager for Python written in Rust by Astral.
  • Ruff: Alternative to flake8, balck, isort written in Rust by Astral.

💪 Doing

I am working on a hands-on Python mini-course with a ’learning by doing’ approach.

I’ve also started brainstorming a Python CLI project boilerplate. My goal is to get something minimalistic up and running, then gradually add features as I go.

📑 Good Read

On the quest of finding the best package manager, I came across this nice blog post about python development environment setup.

One thing I will add to the list would be this small article I found in my bookmarks about undoing things in Git. This may seem not important, but I think This is is basic knowledge that each ofteare engineer needs to know. I like to ask questions about udoing things in git in my interviews

🛠️ Power tool

I’ve been using a tool for quite some time that I can’t live without. It’s called Z, a simple shell script that helps you navigate your filesystem incredibly fast. A newer drop-in replacement, written in Golang, is called Zoxide

Another tool, I discovered this week is NotDiamond. They describe themselves as an AI model router. Essentially, they analyze your prompt, select the two best models to respond, and display them side by side so you can choose the best one. The best part is they offer monthly credits to use top models in the market for free. I’m not sure how they manage it. Likely through VC funding to gather data for training their so-called ‘routers’.

💎 A knowledge gem

Mark Nottingham is the chair of HTTP Working Group at IETF. He has a very interesting blog where he shares his insights on the web history, and future and other interesting topics.

🔗 Long live the web (and my bookmarks)

Here are 3 random picks from my bookmarks:

  • Low End Talk: A forum about low end, cheap hosting providers.
  • Kata Log: Learn TDD using Katas.
  • PHP internals book: A very good book about PHP internal. I read some chapters while I was working on PHP projects 3 years ago.

💡 A tip, A time saver ?

I had mixed feelings about Nerd Fonts. On one hand, they are beautiful and useful, but installing them is a hassle. That was until I discovered getnf, a shell script that makes installing Nerd Fonts seamless.

🌻 Life

🧠 Learning

I don’t like self-help books and find them boring to read. One example is Don’t Split the Difference. I was interested in negotiation but didn’t want to read the entire book, so I decided to take Christopher Voss’s Masterclass instead.

💪 Doing

Since I moved to the new house, I’ve been making a big effort to declutter and get rid of things I don’t need.

Similarly, I’ve been cleaning up my GitLab projects, especially those related to personal life and projects. I may share more about this in the coming weeks.

📖 A book I am reading …

I’m currently reading the second volume of Istiqsaa, a renowned Moroccan history book. This volume covers the era of Almoravid and Almohad rule in Morocco. I’ve learned many new things I didn’t know before, and I highly recommend it.

I really enjoyed the chapters about Youssef Ibn Tachfin, the greatest Almoravid ruler, and his stories with his cousin and rival Abou Bakr Ibn Omar.

The dramatic rise of the Almohads was fascinating too, especially the tales of El Mehdi Ibn Toumart and Abdelmoumen Ibn Ali El Koumi and their battles with the previous Almoravid dynasty.

The chapter also covers the golden age of the Almohad era (maybe even for Morocco) with Yaaqoub El Mansour. It was interesting to know how many famous people lived in Morocco back then, like Ibn Rochd, Ibn Tofail, Qadi Ayyad, and Abu El Abbas Sebti.

🎶 Listenning

My podcast recomendation for this number would be a podcast about money with Dr Saif Eddine Amous from Bidoun Waraq Podcast.

For Music, I came accross a very beautiful album called Dos Medinas Blancas from 2017 featuring Nabila Maan. I’ve never listned to it before although I am a big fan of the artist.

🖊️ Writing

I wrote some article in the previous weeks including:

Mrrakc

Personal Blog

Other

🎥 Watching

  • The Sunset Limited: This one is the kind of movies which are shot in the same location and with just 2 actors. And to be honnest it was brilliantly made. The screenplay and the dialogue are very well written and the acting is so good. This movie is R-rated and I do not recommend for people who are in a difficult mental state. Don’t watch it if you are depressed!
  • Close: Despite the agenda (or not), this movie is very fine and beautiful. It touches on some sensitive topics, and most importantly the dialogue and acting is top class. It can be a little bit sad, I don’t recommend to watch if you are sad already.
  • The Disciple: It’s been a while since I’ve seen such a good Indian movie. While it can be slow at times, it’s definitely one of the best films I’ve watched in 2023. It’s raw, unpredictable, and breaks away from the typical, overused storyline.

🤍 A beautiful thing

One beautiful thing I want to share with you is Anaruz, an associative school club in ENSAK.

When I was in school, the club was inactive, so a group of friends and I decided to revive it. We started small with only a few actions, but year after year, the club grew.

Now, after 6 or 7 years, the club is bigger than ever and making a meaningful impact in the community.

💎 A knowledge gem

My discovery of the month is acoup.blog. It features insightful essays on the history of almost anything. The content is truly excellent.

🔗 Long live the web (and my bookmarks)

These are 3 picks from my bookmarks

📹 Some good content

During the Olympics, I watched a lot of content from 3ilm Al Jary. He’s one of the best track and field content creators in Morocco, if not the best. He’s doing amazing work through his YouTube channels and his podcast with Moroccan long distance runner Zouheir Talibi.

Another mention is Best Documentary channel, which is a channel with hundreds of documentaries about all kinds of topics.

🗺️ You should visit

For the best you should visit for this month are:

  • Mohammed V Boulevard - Casablanca: One of the most beautiful street of Casablanca and of Morocco as a whole. If you like architecture, a walk through Mohammed V street will blow your mind.
  • Debdou: It is one of my favorite discoveries of 2023. It’s a small mountain town with stunning nature and a rich history. While the landmarks, like the Jewish quarter and the Wattasid Kasbah (once the capital of the Principality of Debdou), aren’t as well-preserved as they should be, they still stand as reminders of the town’s historical significance.

😋 Eating

Whenever I have some spare time on weekends, I try something new. This time, it was Mqila Rayan in Ain Chock. The food was good, but the service was lacking. Overall, a solid 4/5.

The whole experience got better after a desert from a bakery in front of the Mqila Snack.

💡 A tip, A life saver ?

I’ve always struggled with change! Coins either get lost in my pockets, or I can’t find them when I need them. So, I bought a small leather wallet with a zipper just for change (coins and 20 DH bills).

The rule is:

  • When making big payments (butcher, groceries, restaurants, etc.), I always use larger bills, even if I have enough change in the wallet.
  • I save the change in the small wallet to use for smaller transactions later (taxis, snacks, souk, etc.).

📜 An inspiring quote

One of my favorite quotes, which I’ve just heard last week and resonated with me so much. It was Bruce Lee’s be like water quote.

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. – Bruce Lee

✨ A Reflexion

It’s becoming widely recognized that social media impacts mental health, but what isn’t often discussed is how it affects, or at least changes, our social health.

I’m not sure if social health is a thing already, but what I mean is that social media influences our relationships and how we interact with others.

From my experience, social media promotes less direct face-to-face conversation in favor of online interactions. Another thing I noticed is that Since using social media, I stopped relying on phone calls and replaced them texting. Additionally, I’ve started to favor asynchronous communication through stories and posts over direct messaging.

with all of this the way we interact with other people is changing radically without us even knowing. In my case social media is sometimes helping me create new relationships, but it made me pick upsome bad habits that are making my social life poored and my relationships weaker.

I am working on fixing this at moment. One thing I am trying to apply is Social Minimalism (Again a new word I maybe invented). Maybe I will write more about it in the next edition.

Thank you for reading, see you in the next one!